What time period do you consider historical?

Just curious, what time do you consider Historical Fiction? 25 years ago? 50 years ago? I have seen books listed as historical fiction from my lifetime. I usually consider well before I was born a historical fiction read, and was wondering what others thought.

Well, I just started Sir Walter Scott's Waverly today, which is considered one of the first western historical novels. I was set roughly sixty years before it was written, per the subtitle, though it was actually closer to seventy years. So, I don't think it needs to be all that long ago. I'd probably define it loosely as a novel that centers around an historical event or a social environment that is in the past, whether it's the recent past or long ago. For example The Women by Kristen Hannah centers around the Vietnam War, and while that was in my lifetime, it is over. So even though there are parts that occur more recently, since they deal with Vietnam aftermath, I'd classify it as an historical novel. YMMV.

One rough rule of thumb we often use is that a historical novel is one set before the author’s birth. But arguably you could consider the term to include any novel where the author needed to use historical research of some kind. I don’t worry too much about that in practice — if the book interests me and is well-written, I’m not going to sit around agonising about what genre it belongs to.

If you look back in the archives of this group, you’ll see many previous threads on this topic.

Mostly I agree with >3 thorold:. A book set in the 40s that was written & published in the 40s isn't historical. If a 25-year-old today (born in 2000!!!!!) wrote a book that takes place in the 90s or early 00s when they were not alive or were too young to remember, that would be historical.

Does anyone else have the same bias that I have? - In my mind, I can't consider it historical fiction if the story occurs during my lifetime, or the lifetime of the generation before mine.

I guess the bottom line from reading the other posts here is that what is historical is in the eye of the beholder, or in our case, the reader. I agree with >3 thorold:- what matters most is whether the book is well-written and is interesting to me.

>5 blakelylaw: I feel pretty much the same as you, though I am enjoying everyone's viewpoint.